Washington -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- In less than a month , the government may shut down . Lines are being drawn . Vacations are being canceled . Friends are becoming enemies .

Are you concerned yet ? Confused ? Well , if you 're not , you should be .

At the center of complex negotiations in Washington is a sturdy little political device known as a continuing resolution , also called a `` CR . ''

A continuing resolution ? A CR ? What in the heck is that ? Good question . It is a legislative tool designed to keep the government running when the president and Congress ca n't get it together .

By October 1 -- the deadline to keep funding everything in the government from the IRS to the Army -- you 'll probably hear the term hundreds of times in news articles and out of the mouths of commentators and pundits . So let 's explain :

Q : What is a ` CR ' ?

A : It 's a legislative trick to pay the bills . The federal government 's fiscal year starts October 1 . And the one key duty laid out in the Constitution for Congress is to pass spending bills that fund the government .

Want a few billion for roads and bridges ? Go see Congress . That aircraft carrier needs a new paint job ? Congress is the place to go .

Sounds simple enough , but , in reality , the House and the Senate have n't done their job .

In the past year , Congress has n't passed any of the 12 different spending bills that fund the much of the government , including defense programs , transportation projects and education .

So when Congress does n't do its job , then it has to pass a continuing resolution , also referred to as a short-term spending bill or a stop-gap spending measure .

It is a bill that sidesteps the lengthy budget process and funds the government for a specified period of time . It can last anywhere from a day to a year .

CRs are not an anomaly . They have been used 156 times between 1977 and 2011 .

And before 1977 , they were so common that Congress changed the start of the fiscal year from July to October to give lawmakers more time to pass the spending bills . That worked for a few years but then Congress settled into the new schedule and , like any high school student -- or journalist on deadline -- it procrastinated . So it had to revert back to the use of CRs to keep the government open .

And here we are .

Q : Why shut down the government ?

A : Yea , why ? And what does CR have to do with a government shutdown ?

Often , a CR is a simple legislative extension to accommodate lawmakers who do n't get their work done . It 's not designed to solve a debate embroiled in partisan politics .

`` Typically these appropriations bills are not that partisan , '' said Steve Ellis , vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense .

But that 's not always the case .

Congress `` recognizes one of their leverages is the power of the purse , '' Ellis said , adding that politicization of the budget process has become more polarized during the Obama administration .

House Speaker John Boehner has proposed a short-term spending bill that would fund the government until December 15 . But then politics got in the way .

This year , a core group of conservative Republicans in the House wants to tie the entire $ 986 billion annual operating budget to a provision to defund the health care law known as Obamacare .

House GOP leaders delay vote on spending bill after conservatives rebel

Still , it 's rare that the threat of a government shutdown revolves around a partisan legislative poison pill . More often it 's about spending levels and the size of the government .

That 's the track Republicans usually take . Since 2011 , they have used budget battles -- and taken the country to the edge of government shutdown -- to extract $ 2.3 trillion from federal spending .

It 's worth it , they say , to rein in the first two years of the Obama administration 's spending spree , which included $ 830 billion in economic stimulus and an expensive new health care law .

Q : Have we been here before ?

A. Yes . In 1995 and 1996 , President Bill Clinton battled a Republican-led Congress over spending levels -LRB- his nemesis was then-Speaker Newt Gingrich -RRB- .

It ended in a government shutdown -- for 28 days at the end of 1995 and beginning of 1996 -- and the American public largely blamed Congress .

Following the shutdown , Clinton gained an enormous political upper hand and Gingrich later lost his job as speaker .

While politics seem particularly bad during these times , it 's important to remember that the government has n't actually shut down under this Congress or this president . Yet .

Q : So why is this so hard ?

A. Passing spending bills is not easy . They can reflect the fundamental differences of governing philosophy . Should we fund school lunches or more tanks ? Aid to Egypt or money for Detroit ?

It often takes intense negotiating between the two chambers of Congress and the president . But some in Congress complain that President Barack Obama has not been the easiest guy to work with , especially when it comes to bridging partisan gaps .

He rarely interacts with members of Congress , many say they do n't trust him and he has angered once-friends on the Hill with his recent positions on Syria .

Congress shifts its focus away from Syria resolution

But the fight over the continuing resolution is just an extension of a deeper fight over the budget . Much to the dismay of Republicans , the Senate in recent years has failed to pass even a simple budget , a precursor to spending bills .

And even though the Senate finally passed a budget -- it did so in March after the House acted -- leaders in both chambers could n't agree to start the process of combining their versions into a final bill . So the budget went nowhere .

Jim Manley , a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the budget encapsulates Washington .

`` The current budget process symbolizes all that is wrong with Congress right now . It 's broken and needs to be fixed , '' he said .

Q : But they 're really not going to do this , are they ?

A : That 's not clear . House Republican leaders are well aware of the political risks of threatening to shut down the government . They are reluctantly trying to avoid tying a short-term spending bill to defunding Obamacare . Not surprisingly , a CNN/ORC International poll shows that Republicans would again be blamed if the government does shut down .

CNN Poll : Who would get blamed for government shutdown ?

`` Only a third would consider President Barack Obama responsible for a shutdown , with 51 % pointing a finger at the GOP - up from 40 % who felt that way earlier this year , '' said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland .

Q : Is n't this a really bad way to run the greatest democracy on Earth ?

A : Even if the continuing resolution was n't wrapped up in talks of politics and government shutdown , Ellis argues that `` it 's a terrible way to run government . ''

CRs fund the government at the same level as the previous year . That means wasteful programs that need to be stopped or cut back are n't , and programs that need more money do n't get it .

`` One way to force government to have waste and inefficiency is to have a CR , '' Ellis said .

Q : Can it get any worse ?

A : It could . The CR is going to be one fight the Congress will have over the next couple of weeks . The next fight will be over the debt ceiling -- permitting the government to borrow more money to pay off its past spending debts .

But that 's a different story for a different day .

CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report

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More talk of a government shutdown prevails in Washington

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Common budget tool to fund the government , the `` continuing resolution , '' is becoming more divisive

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Some Republicans are trying to tie government spending to defunding Obamacare

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Experts say continuing resolutions are inefficient